applesauce
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For the two quotes by Abe and Ishihara, its important to consider what a statement means by including all the words they say instead of being lazy and knee jerk reacting.
For Abe, his statement includes "evidence" and at the very end "as initiated" which is probably referring to some claim that maybe he was responding too. So need to dig up the claim. What is commonly asserted by comfort women campaigners is that the, and I paraphrase, "Japanese military forcibly kidnapped over 200,000 Korean women/girls to be used as sex slaves." Three key actualities make that statement assertion false. One is that the Japanese military did not kidnap the women/girls. The Brothel owners and recruiters conducted that affair. And it wasn't in the form of kidnapping. It was by large by job application. Although the dirty aspect is that some young women that were thinking they were applying for a standard factory job were tricked into going to the brothels. So that can be called human trafficing. But it wasn't alwsys. Another aspect is that out of the brothel owners/recruiters, half were Korean. If the Japanese army wss going around banging on doors demanding young women or suddenly kidnapping women off the streets, you would thing there would be evidence of this going on. Korea during Imperial Japan times was not some sort of gulag where literal all aspects of life was controlled and suppressed. If there was a scandal of such kidnapping by the Imperial Army of girls and women, there would be an uproar. But there is no evidence of such thing happening. The other aspect is "sex slave". This was not slave. It was prostitution and most went into it willingly and many made good money even and some even got married with a Japanese soldier. The third point is the number 200,000 which is ridiculously high. For one, back to a previously stated if as many 200,000 but with no lash back whatsoever by Koreans about that at that time? Is totally ridiculous. But also, the whole comfort women thing came into light by the late 1980s and early 1990s and ever since then for over two decades while the whole comfort women agenda was being pushed and being eaten up by gulliable glory victor westerners and CCP Chinese, how many women actually came forth and stated they were comfort women? Out of the asserted 200,000.. 10% would be 20,000 women. But not even that many. 1% would be 2,000, but not even that. Only around 240 came fourth saying they were comfort women. If there were originally over 200,000, why only 240, 250 or whatever the precise amount was? For a person to be 20 in 1945 would meant to be 65 in 1990. There should be more, a lot more. But not even close to 1.0% of the asserted number.
So there you go. "kidnapped by Japanese military" is BS. "Sex slave" is BS. and "200,000" is BS. While this can still be a case of human trafficking which does still warrant recognition and apology. It's got the apologies and effort to give recognition was given. But the amount of BS that the comfort women campaigners assert is what breaks down reconiliation.
that's pretty much just semantics.
"oh sure, the kidnapper weren't japanese they were just korean people working for the Japanese whose actions were known about and okayed by the japanese, who occupied their lands by the force of arms"
"oh sure, the sex slaves weren't slavery, they were just lied to then forced to remain as sex "workers" once they found out what the "job" was"
its like saying "oh i didn't shoot the guy, i just held a gun to another man's wife's head and had that other guy shoot him, im totally innocent and the first guy's cousin is totally in the wrong for being mad at me" that's the thinking you have.
i have no doubt some people benefited and profited but so what? does that make it okay to do?
and for your information, its was a shameful time for those women, plus the immediate post war situational korea, with the separation of the koreas then the Korean war, dictatorship in the south and south korean need to make nice with japan because both are us allies against a much more pressing foe in the north. why on earth would you expect all of them to come forward? many would have died during the war itself and in intervening time until SK stabilized and by then its was the 80s not many remain alive by then.
but again, even if the actual number was say....1000, does that excuse the japanese? does that mean your government is right in complaining about a statue dedicated to those women? that the koreans are in the wrong for making a statues to remember people who suffered?
how about that statue to the korean who shot the occupying Japanese governor? is his story a lie too? is japan in the right to complain about a korean freedom fighter?